Season 6 Episode 3: And Again (3 of 12)
by GrayCharacter16
Summary: King Olaf and his daughter visit Camelot once again, and to everybody's consternation, Princess Vivian is still under the enchantment that made her fall in love with Arthur. Queen Guinevere is none to happy about that, but it's toughest of all for Merlin, because as usual, he's the one who has keep this unfortunate situation from sparking a war...


A/N: Hey! This is one episode in the continuous storyline of my Merlin season 6, so you have to read the other episodes before this one. I know it seems like a lot but I promise it's not that bad. Start with my alternate S5E13 ending, then it'll link you to my season 6 episode 1. Here's the link to 5.13 alternate:

www,fanfiction,net/s/10568694/1/The-Diamond-of-the-Day-Part-2-Alternate-ending

replace the commas with periods to make it work. :)

**PLEASE DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU'VE READ THE EPISODES I WROTE TO PRECEDE IT. Thanks!**

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><p>"Are you sure I don't smell like manure?" Kay laughed.<p>

Terra grinned at him. "Honestly, I can't tell over the smell of mead in here."

She was trying to set him up with a new friend of hers, a girl who worked in the kitchen at the castle. She was four years younger than Terra, which made her only two years younger than Kay. He didn't want to tell his sister that he really wasn't interested in her friend, since this was the first time he'd gotten to go out with her in a while.

They had been at the tavern for half an hour, and Kay honestly was about ready for the night to be over. As someone who hated hard drinks and thought deliberately getting intoxicated was the stupidest thing a person could do, Kay found it disgusting to be surrounded by men drinking their third tankard of ale.

To further bother him, the group of knights at the table right next to his were getting rowdy; one of them, a bearded fellow with long brown hair, was tipsy, and the others were getting a huge kick out of his drunkenness. They were all men he'd seen around the castle – friends of Merlin's, he believed, and members of Arthur's inner circle.

Still, he felt an intense dislike for them right now. The only one who had abstained from the mead was the youngest, the solemn-faced boy with dark, curly hair to whom he had heard Merlin refer as Mordred. The oldest one, the captain of the guard, was still on his first tankard, which was reasonable. The big one had had two, which was still alright; he was a big man, he could probably handle that much just fine. But the bearded one – what was his name? Sir Gwaine, or something like that – had just gotten his fourth tankard. How he could stomach so much mead was beyond Kay's comprehension, but it was sure to be killing his liver.

Reaching the bottom of his mug of coffee, Kay stood up from the table, telling his sister and her friend, "I'll be right back."

They were busy gossiping about some other member of the castle staff; Katera nodded acknowledgement of his words, but otherwise they didn't seem to notice him.

Shrugging, Kay made his way toward the bar. He really just wanted to go home and get a good night's sleep; the king had paid him an unexpected visit while he was mucking stalls earlier that day and given him a list of unnecessary duties to perform around the stable. As a result, Kay was worn out and on edge.

The barmaid was sweeping up the shards of a mug someone had shattered. She leaned her broom against the bar to take his drink. "Refill?"

"Please." He handed it over. "Coffee."

"Sure." She stumped toward the kitchen. "Hold on a minute."

Kay glanced over his shoulder toward his sister. To his consternation, the drunk knight – Sir Gwaine – had taken advantage of his absence to leave his own table and sit down on the bench beside Terra, leaning back on the table to grin lazily at her. He appeared to be offering her a drink from his tankard.

Katera said something coolly; the knight smiled and held his drink out to her insistently. She made to push it away; he pushed it closer, speaking forcefully. His friends at the other table were engaged in a conversation of their own, not thinking to look and see where Gwaine was; they made no attempt to intervene on Terra's behalf.

As Kay's sister spoke angrily, she shoved the drunk's tankard away; its contents sloshed against the sudden movement and spilled over the edges, splashing the loose sleeve of his tunic and splattering over the tabletop.

There was a tense pause between the two; then the knight snapped something irately, abruptly set down the tankard and grabbed hold of Terra's wrist. She twisted her hand away angrily and pushed him.

The barmaid was still nowhere to be seen. Kay reached over the bar and took hold of her broom; it was a long-handled one with a twist-off head. As he made his way back toward his table, he unscrewed the head and dropped it to the floor, holding the broomstick loosely in his right hand.

Gwaine banged a hand down angrily on the tabletop, his face only a few inches from Katera's as he snarled at her. Kay shoved the knight backward. "Hey, get lost."

"You get lost." Gwaine snapped, returning the shove spiritedly. "Don't tell me what to do, one-eye."

Kay wasn't normally stung by references to his eyepatch, but this one irritated him by virtue of who it was coming from. "I'll tell you what I like!"

"I am . . ." He appeared to pause, trying to remember what he was. "I am a knight of Camelot . . . and you will treat me – " He screwed up his face as though the backwash of his mead suddenly tasted foul. "With respect."

The man was obviously far gone, but physically he seemed to be holding together quite well. He stood steadily, without wobbling as drunks normally did, and his bloodshot eyes maintained constant contact.

Kay scowled. "If you're a knight of Camelot, they must be beyond desperate for recruits. _I_ would make a better knight than a sod like you."

The man reddened angrily; then, suddenly, he reached for his sword. "Prove it, then!"

The rasp of steel being drawn instantly attracted the attention of everyone in the room. Kay gave a very slight, humorless grin. The other man had drawn first, and everybody in the tavern had seen it; now he had a right to defend himself.

Without warning, the broomstick flicked up, ramming into Gwaine's stomach. The knight doubled over, wheezing; Kay spun the broom and cracked it across the back of his opponent's neck. He drew back, watching Gwaine keenly as he reevaluated his own weapon. It was lighter than he'd thought; lighter than was ideal for a quarterstaff, and not as long as he'd like; but still, it served the purpose.

Gwaine sprang into action suddenly; startled by the ferocity of the drunk's attack, Kay fell back, parrying a shower of blows with his staff. It took him a second to recover – then he got in an extra blow between blocks, slamming the broomstick into the knight's ribcage. Gwaine recoiled with a grunt, but as Kay brought his staff around for another blow the knight turned it aside with his sword and went for a stab at the younger man's chest.

Kay leaped back, sweeping the broomstick across and hitting the back of Gwaine's sword hand and arm. He followed up swiftly, stabbing the end of the staff at the side of the knight's knee. With a proper quarterstaff, a blow like that could knock bones out of alignment or break the leg, but with the lightweight broomstick the worst it did was cause the knee to buckle.

Gwaine shouted in angry pain and moved in, his swordpoint everywhere. Kay gave ground, getting in a blow of his own here and there but still being forced back. His weapon could strike without causing serious injury; should Gwaine's sword strike him, though, he would be critically wounded.

The thing to do was to disarm the man, Kay realized. He acted on the thought instantly; lunging in, he slammed his staff straight into the knight's face, connecting hard with his nose, then across his upper arm, sending stabs of pain down to Gwaine's sword hand. He brought the staff down hard on Gwaine's forearm as it stretched out to land a backhanded slash across his ribs. The blow was knocked sideways, laying open the knuckles of Kay's leading hand.

After an instant of brilliant maneuvering, Kay brought the knight down toward the floor. He stamped on Gwaine's sword blade, pinning it down, but was taken by surprise when, instead of trying to pull his weapon away, the knight let go of it and tackled Kay, slamming both of them back into the table.

At this proximity, Kay's staff was useless. He had learned to fight without weapons, but it wasn't exactly his forte; Gwaine had a definite advantage now.

As the knight's fist pounded twice across his face, Kay pushed off from the table, sending the pair of them reeling away, still gripping each other furiously. They crashed to the floor; Gwaine was on top, blood streaming from his nose, but before he could take advantage of his position, huge hands were hauling him upright. Kay leaped to his feet to continue the attack, but Terra was there, jumping in front of him and pushing him back. At the same time, another pair of hands caught him by the arms, immobilizing him.

The biggest of the knights was the one who had seized Gwaine. He shook the drunk, speaking to him angrily, but Kay wasn't listening. He stopped struggling, startled that things had gotten out of hand so quickly. The whole fight had been no more than fifteen seconds long.

As the two opponents relaxed, the other knights let go of them. Percival guided Gwaine toward the door, handing him something to staunch the blood flowing from his nose. The youngest knight – Sir Mordred, right? – turned toward Kay and Terra, telling them apologetically, "He's not usually like that. He's just had too much to drink."

"Takes a lot of mead to turn a good man into something like that." Kay growled disbelievingly.

"Believe me, he's had enough." The young knight promised.

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><p>AN: What did you guys think?!

Just so you know, I'm almost definitely not going to update over the next week or so. On Saturday I'm running an event at school that we've been preparing for since July, and this week is going to be a crazy hustle of getting ready for that. Plus I have work, and it's the week before Christmas break so I'm going to have a ton of tests. And I'm FINALLY finishing behind-the-wheel, which I should have been done with AGES ago, and getting my license Sunday (hopefully), so if I manage to get three hours of free time a day, I'll use them to get some sleep in. But then it's Christmas break, so I should have a bit of time.

Also, some of you have seen it, but I posted a "Q&A with the Merlin characters" story. I mean, it's not really a story, but you know what I mean. Go check it out and leave me some questions! :D


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